Drawing on previously unpublished documents from the Central National Historical Archives, this article reconstructs the final years of the Church of the Forty Martyrs in Bucharest, a dependency of the Diocese of Râmnic founded by Mihail Cantacuzino, tracing the efforts of Bishop Saint Calinic of Cernica to save it from demolition, the controversial contract between the French contractor Alexis Godillot and the Bucharest City Council, and the transfer of the land for the construction of the Romanian Athenaeum.